And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.
In the parable the owner agrees that continued barrenness deserves cutting down, yet the gardener pleads for one more year to dig around the tree and fertilize it with every attention, and if it then bears fruit it is spared, but if not it is to be cut down. The owner and the dresser being one in interest shows the Father and the Son united in love for the chosen people, putting every means of divine love into operation that they might become trees of righteousness bringing forth fruit for the blessing of the world. The delay expresses God's patience and long forbearance, but probation is limited and not indefinite, marking one final added opportunity after which the fruitless tree as a cumberer of the ground is removed in ultimate separation from Christ. The fruitless fig tree is the Jewish nation richly blessed yet lacking righteousness, whose three years are Christ's own three-year personal ministry searching for fruit as their last trial, and whose continued rejection sealed its doom in terrible destruction. The warning reaches beyond the Jews to all churches and Christians with great advantages who bear no fruit, for God expects returns proportionate to gifts and light in holy character and works that bless others, and mere profession, membership, or leaves without a living connection to Christ will not suffice.
Parable Words and Plot
The dresser does not dispute the sentence that continued barrenness should end in cutting down, yet he pleads for one more year to dig about the tree and fertilize it. That plea is willingness to minister to a most unpromising plant with still greater care, making its surroundings most favorable and lavishing every attention upon it. There is no greater joy to him than its growth and fruitfulness, and he shares the owner's desire that it should bear fruit and provides every opportunity for growth. The patience has a limit, for the tree is spared for a further time to receive care and bear fruit, but if it remains fruitless it will be cut down.
The owner and the dresser being one in interest means the Father and the Son were one in love for the chosen people. Increased opportunities would therefore be given them, with every means that divine love could devise put in operation that they might become trees of righteousness bringing forth fruit for the blessing of the world. The outcome is conditional: if the tree bears fruit during the additional time granted under special care, well, it is spared and may remain; if it still bears none after that time, it is to be cut down. That final opportunity follows gracious renewal of mercy and tending, yet continued failure to bear fruit after such care brings judgment as a cumberer cut down.
Jesus left the result of that work untold and placed the conclusion with the generation hearing Him. To them the warning was solemnly given that continued fruitlessness would bring cutting down, and it rested on them by their response whether the irrevocable sentence would fall and the warning of destruction be fulfilled. The verse thus links the warning of judgment with the invitation of mercy. It illustrates the mission of mercy in its relation to justice and judgment, that He came not to destroy lives but to save them and not to condemn the world but to save it.
The verse belongs to the warning of the coming kingdom that sharply rebukes ignorance and indifference. People were quick to read the signs in the sky that foretell the weather, but they did not discern the signs of the times that clearly pointed to His mission. The image of a tree that bears no fruit is among the works of nature used to impress divine truths on hearers, so that seeing such things afterward could bring the lessons back to mind.
Probation Ends in Judgment
Christ intercedes for the unfruitful person, asking that judgment be held back so more time may be given for truth to impress the heart and for light to reach the soul unto fruitfulness. That added time with added care is granted to one who has received much light and many opportunities yet has neglected warnings and failed to change, as a further chance to heed the Spirit, reform, and become fruitful. If the person still refuses and remains unfruitful, the opportunity ends and the tree is cut down.
The delay expresses divine patience and long forbearance, but it is not an indefinite exemption from judgment. The fruitless tree is given one final added period of care and testing, year after year, with continual encounters of such cases, and if it bears fruit during that time it may remain, while if it still bears none it is to be cut down as a cumberer of the ground. Continued patience is therefore opportunity to change, not reason for indifference. The words after that mark the close of forbearance and mean ultimate and complete separation from Christ, like a dead branch severed from the vine, a separation already begun in the heart years before. The outcome is not predetermined, but is decided by response to the care and blessings given, so that nothing can save from destruction one who fails to profit from them.
If a heart keeps refusing to respond to divine agencies it becomes hardened until it can no longer be influenced by the Holy Spirit, and then the decision is made to remove the fruitless tree for uselessly occupying the ground. The tree is spared for a further time to receive care and bear fruit, showing mercy and labor for those who have not responded, but that patience has a limit and judgment follows hardened fruitlessness. God seeks to bring the unfruitful to repentance and to the Saviour through repeated warnings and through trouble, loss, misfortune and affliction. If these measures do not turn the wrongdoer to the Saviour, divine patience does not continue indefinitely and the fruitless tree is finally cut down.
The mandate to cut down the unfruitful tree for cumbering the ground may go forth at any moment against a life that bears no fruit, especially one standing in rebellion in refusing to keep the commandments. Such a life is uncertain, and disease or accident or death may suddenly cut it off while unready, leaving the soul lost. Satan is the destroyer, and suffering and misery belong to his ranks. God bears long with perversity and gives more than one test and trial, but if there is no repentance and confession to God and no restitution for robbery and neglect, the mandate will at last go forth. The cutting down is a judgment in which all neglect, selfishness and cruelty toward a suffering wife, who is Christ's property bought with His blood, appears against the sinner in the books of heaven, because what is done to her is done to Christ.
Israel's Visitation and Fall
The fruitless fig tree is the Jewish nation, a people richly blessed and tested by God yet lacking the fruits of righteousness, given one final opportunity under special care and, if still fruitless, to be cut down. The three years of seeking fruit are Christ's own three-year personal ministry among them, coming Himself after servants and prophets had been rejected. That ministry worked unselfishly in teaching and healing and forgiving, in pleading for admittance and scattering blessings and calling people to Him. It was their last trial and further period of mercy, with continued labor showing both the opportunity granted and the consequence of failing to respond.
His presence among them was a day of opportunity and merciful visitation. But their unbelief and rejection were making them hardened and impenitent, and their fruitless religion hindered rather than helped. The day of wrath was near, and the calamities already fallen upon Israel were merciful forewarnings from the owner of the vineyard of the destruction coming upon the unfruitful tree. If they continued to reject counsel and reproof they would perish through the results of their own choices.
Continued refusal to respond ended the reprieve and brought judgment, fulfilled in the terrible destruction of the nation and the ending of its favored standing. By rejecting light and warnings and entreaties and bringing dishonor to God, the city sealed its own doom and forged its own fetters and loaded its own cloud of wrath. So the things belonging to its peace became hid from its eyes and terrible retribution became inevitable. Refusal was willful, not inability, while waves of mercy beaten back by indifference and contempt and rejection returned again and again to break rocky hearts. After the Son had searched for fruit and found none, continued rejection of mercy and refusal of the light and evidence already given brought the sentence of removal and left it irrevocable.
The outcome was not predetermined, for the tree is the people addressed by Christ, whose response to the care and blessings given them determines their destiny. Christ's later cursing of the barren fig tree showed that they had chosen destruction by failing to profit from those blessings, so that nothing could save it from destruction. The same pattern is now the individual's day and opportunity to repent and obey before the irrevocable sentence is uttered.
What Fruit Means
God expects fruit from those He has planted and tenderly cared for, with returns proportionate to gifts, care, light and sacred privilege, so that greater blessings require greater return. Merely avoiding wrong acts is not enough, for people are accountable not only for wrong done but for good neglected, and neglected good makes them cumberers of the ground. His searching gaze examines heart and life, and that inspection concerns both duty and destiny. Even those who have slighted mercy and abused grace are not beyond hope while His long-suffering love still pleads with them.
The fruit He claims is a pure and holy character shown in spiritual growth after Christ's perfect model, obedient to all the Father's requirements and to the precepts of the holy law. It is godliness, self-denial for others' good, meekness and loveliness of heart, with penitence, faith and obedience in saying and doing. It is the fruit of righteousness, with righteousness, peace and joy, and spiritual virtue in workers that contributes to saving souls for eternal life. The disappointment of the parable is finding only leaves despite continued care.
Bearing fruit after years in the Lord's garden means bringing profit to the Master under God's inspecting eye. It means increasing in reverence, love, humility, confidence in God and gratitude for His mercies, and seeking to bless those around. It means manifesting the spirit of Jesus in the family, teaching His word to children and making known the wonderful works of God, and both being good and doing good. Then a fragrance about the life and loveliness of character reveal a child of God and an heir of heaven.
The fruit expected is works corresponding to faith, for profession of faith alone will not suffice. It is laboring for God and letting received light and truth shine to others. It is caring for people around, warning them about sin, and praying and laboring to lead them to truth and righteousness, for the truly converted are not indifferent to others' salvation. It is letting God's light reach others through good works and using time, influence, ability and money in His service to bring truth to people in darkness, with souls won as something to show for labor.
Fruit means a changed response rather than continued transgression. It is a heart surrendered to God, obedience to His will, love for the Saviour and for those for whom He died, and a life showing the restoring influence of the Redeemer. If the tree bears such fruit after added care it is spared, but persisting in refusal brings being cut down and perishing.
Receiving the gospel, church membership, profession of faith including professed sanctification, and God's gifts and care do not suffice without a living connection to Christ and the fruits of the Spirit. A claim to righteousness without a changed life is only leaves despite continued care. The tide of His life does not flow through such a one, and the sweet graces of His character are not seen, so gifts that produce no good for others leave them without blessings and privileges they and others might otherwise receive, convey no blessing to the world, darken the ground so fruitful plants cannot flourish, and rob others of privileges. A profession of truth without that living connection shows no practical godliness or love of God, and unless a thorough work is done, judgment comes as upon the fruitless tree. Hypocritical profession is more hopeless than open sin.
Fruitlessness is living only for self, planning and studying to please self and gathering only for self, out of touch with humanity. It makes every pretension like the fig tree in full leaf, observing forms of worship and professing in words to honor God's law while obedience is lacking. No one can live God's law without ministering to others, and one who professes to serve God but bears no fruit to His glory is more guilty than the open sinner. Such are urged to become fruit bearers by doing duty and the works of Christ, denying self and taking up the cross daily.
Fruitlessness keeps hoping to grow better someday without advancing a step. It dishonors Bible religion by lowering its standard to fit low attainments, receives mercies as a matter of course, and fails to prepare against Satan's assaults and to meet the attacks of the enemy. It fails to engage in constant warfare against selfishness and pride of the heart and the inclinations of the natural heart, and fails to crucify self and deny self daily. It fails to feed the hunger of the soul from God's Word and to search the Scriptures where Christ is testified of, leaving the soul weak, strengthless and unable to do God's will, changing nothing from consumer to provider. Its bitter and profitless fruit misrepresents Christ and gives no religious benefit to the world, presenting a distorted worldly religion that molds others to a low standard through self-love, pleasure-seeking, amusement, weakness and instability, so that the world is made no better by such living and they become unusable in His cause. Mere profession and passive hope do not constitute Christianity, for Christ's followers must grow, deny self, endure hardship, and resist sin and Satan while laboring to save others.
A show of leaves without fruit does not satisfy Christ when He finds no practical godliness or love of God. The leaves picture people who have received much light, mercy, patience and care but do not produce what He seeks, and they are urged to trust Him and respond while He is still patient. Christ searches institutions for spiritual virtue that saves souls, and leaves without fruit reflect the barren condition He found. The unrepentant pretender so entreated and borne with yet remaining defiled is blighted and faces judgment as doomed, a sign of avenging wrath.
Warning and Call Today
The warning reaches beyond the Jews to all who neglect to improve Heaven's gifts, a warning for all time to all churches and to all Christians. It presses especially on those given great advantages and sacred responsibilities who still bear no fruit, who will be removed as unproductive burdens, for probation has an end and the delay expresses patience, not indefinite exemption. Some are even now receiving the last trial, having been granted divine illumination, the example of perfect goodness, and new opportunities and lessons from time to time, and if they remain careless and neglectful they do not know how soon the word will be spoken against them to cut them down. The fruit required is a pure and holy character — godliness, self-denial for others' good, meekness and loveliness of heart, with penitence, faith and obedience after a perfect model of obedience to all requirements. Fruitlessness is living only for self, planning and studying to please self and gathering only for self, out of touch with humanity, making every pretension like the fig tree in full leaf while observing forms of worship and professing in words to honor the law while obedience is lacking, and no one can live that law without ministering to others, so that the professor who bears no fruit to His glory is more guilty than the open sinner.
The fruitless one has long received His gifts, planted in His vineyard under the gardener's watchful care, with the tender gospel message thrilling the heart, taking Christ's name and outwardly a church member which is His body, yet with no living connection with the great heart of love. The tide of His life does not flow through such a one, and the sweet graces of His character, the fruits of the Spirit, are not seen in the life. Like the barren tree receiving rain and sunshine and care and drawing nourishment from the soil, yet with unproductive boughs only darkening the ground so fruitful plants cannot flourish in its shadow, the gifts lavished on the fruitless professor convey no blessing to the world and rob others of privileges that might otherwise be theirs. Such do-nothings ignoring work and personal responsibility only cumber the ground, taking up ground and shade that could serve fruitful trees, and failing to show living faith with works stands as a mournful record, even a mournful blank, against their names in the book of heaven. Christ has given a work to every church member, not to ministers and officials only, and bearing fruit is doing that assigned spiritual work, while indolent neglect leaves the record blank and brings the doom of being cut down after long watching and waiting for a return of love.
Church members who do no missionary work are the fruitless fig tree under sentence to be cut down. Bearing fruit is voicing the truth from God's messengers, catching the first rays of light and diffusing the same, using talents in every way possible to make the ministry a power and get the knowledge of truth before thousands who would discern the evidence. Failure is a do-nothing position of sinful neglect to use God-given talents, slothfulness and idleness that leaves His people years behind, with not one hundredth part done of what is required. In the great day the unfruitful will be self-convicted and self-condemned for that slothfulness unless they see themselves as that tree, come to self-penitence, and seek forgiveness.
The figure applies to the Conferences, from which fruit had been looked for for more than two years, since He expects fruit from those He has planted and tenderly cared for, the fruit of righteousness shown in spiritual growth, with disappointment when only leaves are found despite continued care. It applies to churches bearing no fruit, which face removal. It applies to the church in its present condition when the love of God is lost and love for one another is absent, where self cherished and striving for supremacy bring selfishness and much human working with little pure grace in the heart, so that unless there is reconversion and repentance there will be lack of godliness and sure bearing of evil fruit, a name to live while virtually dead, and the candlestick removed because His Spirit will not always strive. It applies to laborers in the Office and publishing work, who are called to consecrate themselves to Him and center their affections and hopes in Him lest the fruitless be cut down.
The image applies to ministers who stir interest in the truth but fail to complete their work: they are given a further test, and if unfaithful are set aside as cumberers of the ground, while those who accept the truth are to bear fruit to God's glory through daily self-sacrifice and obedience. A gospel worker who wins no souls to Christ shows the fruitless tree, for fruit means souls won with something to show for labor, proved by looking after workers in different places to see the result. Such a tree may need transplanting to another field, and if after proper labor it still bears nothing it is to be cut down by dismissal as an unprofitable servant in soul-saving. The one removed should go into business to earn means to sustain successful laborers, persons of tact and wisdom who in the fear of God win souls, so the cost of working the vineyard is kept low while a large territory is worked.
The verse warns the covetous that opportunity to turn will not last without earnest repentance and decisive change, the unfruitful tree being given only a little more time before it is cut down. It shows disobeyers of the commandments as cumberers of the ground who are not immediately destroyed, and whose religious lives can be reformed when enlightened and accepting the invitation to obey. Pursuing worldly gain while neglecting God and spiritual life ends in being cut down, which is being lost eternally. A life destitute of spiritual fruit is like that tree and needs converting power with penitence and humility, or it will not enter the kingdom. One given time to change who remains unproductive and faultfinding must bring good fruit into the home lest he be cut off, and the wrongdoer going on in heedless indifference will be cut down like a cumberer unless plain reproof and counsel warn him, for those who receive care and reproof yet fail to produce expected fruit defraud Him.
During the added probation Christ ministers with unwearied love, and with increased keeping and watering continually all that heaven can give is bestowed. Even those who have slighted mercy and abused grace are not beyond hope, because long-suffering love still pleads and invites return, healing of backsliding, growth, and fruit received from Him. The added time is opportunity to cherish received light, trust Him and respond while He is patient, turn from selfish pleasure to useful self-denying work for others' good and God's glory, and do the daily opportunities and assigned spiritual work given to every member. Doing that work develops abilities and helps bear fruit, while neglect leaves withered fruitlessness; mere avoiding of wrong does not meet the expectation, for neglected good makes a cumberer and brings accountability. Mere profession and passive hope are not Christianity: followers must grow, deny self, endure hardship, resist sin and Satan, search the Scriptures where Christ is testified of, seek the Lord earnestly and apply His promises, changing consumers into providers.
In the parable the owner agrees that continued barrenness deserves cutting down, yet the gardener pleads for one more year to dig around the tree and fertilize it with every attention, and if it then bears fruit it is spared, but if not it is to be cut down. The owner and the dresser being one in interest shows the Father and the Son united in love for the chosen people, putting every means of divine love into operation that they might become trees of righteousness bringing forth fruit for the blessing of the world. The delay expresses God's patience and long forbearance, but probation is limited and not indefinite, marking one final added opportunity after which the fruitless tree as a cumberer of the ground is removed in ultimate separation from Christ. The fruitless fig tree is the Jewish nation richly blessed yet lacking righteousness, whose three years are Christ's own three-year personal ministry searching for fruit as their last trial, and whose continued rejection sealed its doom in terrible destruction. The warning reaches beyond the Jews to all churches and Christians with great advantages who bear no fruit, for God expects returns proportionate to gifts and light in holy character and works that bless others, and mere profession, membership, or leaves without a living connection to Christ will not suffice.
Parable Words and Plot
The dresser does not dispute the sentence that continued barrenness should end in cutting down, yet he pleads for one more year to dig about the tree and fertilize it. That plea is willingness to minister to a most unpromising plant with still greater care, making its surroundings most favorable and lavishing every attention upon it. There is no greater joy to him than its growth and fruitfulness, and he shares the owner's desire that it should bear fruit and provides every opportunity for growth. The patience has a limit, for the tree is spared for a further time to receive care and bear fruit, but if it remains fruitless it will be cut down.
The owner and the dresser being one in interest means the Father and the Son were one in love for the chosen people. Increased opportunities would therefore be given them, with every means that divine love could devise put in operation that they might become trees of righteousness bringing forth fruit for the blessing of the world. The outcome is conditional: if the tree bears fruit during the additional time granted under special care, well, it is spared and may remain; if it still bears none after that time, it is to be cut down. That final opportunity follows gracious renewal of mercy and tending, yet continued failure to bear fruit after such care brings judgment as a cumberer cut down.
Jesus left the result of that work untold and placed the conclusion with the generation hearing Him. To them the warning was solemnly given that continued fruitlessness would bring cutting down, and it rested on them by their response whether the irrevocable sentence would fall and the warning of destruction be fulfilled. The verse thus links the warning of judgment with the invitation of mercy. It illustrates the mission of mercy in its relation to justice and judgment, that He came not to destroy lives but to save them and not to condemn the world but to save it.
The verse belongs to the warning of the coming kingdom that sharply rebukes ignorance and indifference. People were quick to read the signs in the sky that foretell the weather, but they did not discern the signs of the times that clearly pointed to His mission. The image of a tree that bears no fruit is among the works of nature used to impress divine truths on hearers, so that seeing such things afterward could bring the lessons back to mind.
Probation Ends in Judgment
Christ intercedes for the unfruitful person, asking that judgment be held back so more time may be given for truth to impress the heart and for light to reach the soul unto fruitfulness. That added time with added care is granted to one who has received much light and many opportunities yet has neglected warnings and failed to change, as a further chance to heed the Spirit, reform, and become fruitful. If the person still refuses and remains unfruitful, the opportunity ends and the tree is cut down.
The delay expresses divine patience and long forbearance, but it is not an indefinite exemption from judgment. The fruitless tree is given one final added period of care and testing, year after year, with continual encounters of such cases, and if it bears fruit during that time it may remain, while if it still bears none it is to be cut down as a cumberer of the ground. Continued patience is therefore opportunity to change, not reason for indifference. The words after that mark the close of forbearance and mean ultimate and complete separation from Christ, like a dead branch severed from the vine, a separation already begun in the heart years before. The outcome is not predetermined, but is decided by response to the care and blessings given, so that nothing can save from destruction one who fails to profit from them.
If a heart keeps refusing to respond to divine agencies it becomes hardened until it can no longer be influenced by the Holy Spirit, and then the decision is made to remove the fruitless tree for uselessly occupying the ground. The tree is spared for a further time to receive care and bear fruit, showing mercy and labor for those who have not responded, but that patience has a limit and judgment follows hardened fruitlessness. God seeks to bring the unfruitful to repentance and to the Saviour through repeated warnings and through trouble, loss, misfortune and affliction. If these measures do not turn the wrongdoer to the Saviour, divine patience does not continue indefinitely and the fruitless tree is finally cut down.
The mandate to cut down the unfruitful tree for cumbering the ground may go forth at any moment against a life that bears no fruit, especially one standing in rebellion in refusing to keep the commandments. Such a life is uncertain, and disease or accident or death may suddenly cut it off while unready, leaving the soul lost. Satan is the destroyer, and suffering and misery belong to his ranks. God bears long with perversity and gives more than one test and trial, but if there is no repentance and confession to God and no restitution for robbery and neglect, the mandate will at last go forth. The cutting down is a judgment in which all neglect, selfishness and cruelty toward a suffering wife, who is Christ's property bought with His blood, appears against the sinner in the books of heaven, because what is done to her is done to Christ.
Israel's Visitation and Fall
The fruitless fig tree is the Jewish nation, a people richly blessed and tested by God yet lacking the fruits of righteousness, given one final opportunity under special care and, if still fruitless, to be cut down. The three years of seeking fruit are Christ's own three-year personal ministry among them, coming Himself after servants and prophets had been rejected. That ministry worked unselfishly in teaching and healing and forgiving, in pleading for admittance and scattering blessings and calling people to Him. It was their last trial and further period of mercy, with continued labor showing both the opportunity granted and the consequence of failing to respond.
His presence among them was a day of opportunity and merciful visitation. But their unbelief and rejection were making them hardened and impenitent, and their fruitless religion hindered rather than helped. The day of wrath was near, and the calamities already fallen upon Israel were merciful forewarnings from the owner of the vineyard of the destruction coming upon the unfruitful tree. If they continued to reject counsel and reproof they would perish through the results of their own choices.
Continued refusal to respond ended the reprieve and brought judgment, fulfilled in the terrible destruction of the nation and the ending of its favored standing. By rejecting light and warnings and entreaties and bringing dishonor to God, the city sealed its own doom and forged its own fetters and loaded its own cloud of wrath. So the things belonging to its peace became hid from its eyes and terrible retribution became inevitable. Refusal was willful, not inability, while waves of mercy beaten back by indifference and contempt and rejection returned again and again to break rocky hearts. After the Son had searched for fruit and found none, continued rejection of mercy and refusal of the light and evidence already given brought the sentence of removal and left it irrevocable.
The outcome was not predetermined, for the tree is the people addressed by Christ, whose response to the care and blessings given them determines their destiny. Christ's later cursing of the barren fig tree showed that they had chosen destruction by failing to profit from those blessings, so that nothing could save it from destruction. The same pattern is now the individual's day and opportunity to repent and obey before the irrevocable sentence is uttered.
What Fruit Means
God expects fruit from those He has planted and tenderly cared for, with returns proportionate to gifts, care, light and sacred privilege, so that greater blessings require greater return. Merely avoiding wrong acts is not enough, for people are accountable not only for wrong done but for good neglected, and neglected good makes them cumberers of the ground. His searching gaze examines heart and life, and that inspection concerns both duty and destiny. Even those who have slighted mercy and abused grace are not beyond hope while His long-suffering love still pleads with them.
The fruit He claims is a pure and holy character shown in spiritual growth after Christ's perfect model, obedient to all the Father's requirements and to the precepts of the holy law. It is godliness, self-denial for others' good, meekness and loveliness of heart, with penitence, faith and obedience in saying and doing. It is the fruit of righteousness, with righteousness, peace and joy, and spiritual virtue in workers that contributes to saving souls for eternal life. The disappointment of the parable is finding only leaves despite continued care.
Bearing fruit after years in the Lord's garden means bringing profit to the Master under God's inspecting eye. It means increasing in reverence, love, humility, confidence in God and gratitude for His mercies, and seeking to bless those around. It means manifesting the spirit of Jesus in the family, teaching His word to children and making known the wonderful works of God, and both being good and doing good. Then a fragrance about the life and loveliness of character reveal a child of God and an heir of heaven.
The fruit expected is works corresponding to faith, for profession of faith alone will not suffice. It is laboring for God and letting received light and truth shine to others. It is caring for people around, warning them about sin, and praying and laboring to lead them to truth and righteousness, for the truly converted are not indifferent to others' salvation. It is letting God's light reach others through good works and using time, influence, ability and money in His service to bring truth to people in darkness, with souls won as something to show for labor.
Fruit means a changed response rather than continued transgression. It is a heart surrendered to God, obedience to His will, love for the Saviour and for those for whom He died, and a life showing the restoring influence of the Redeemer. If the tree bears such fruit after added care it is spared, but persisting in refusal brings being cut down and perishing.
Receiving the gospel, church membership, profession of faith including professed sanctification, and God's gifts and care do not suffice without a living connection to Christ and the fruits of the Spirit. A claim to righteousness without a changed life is only leaves despite continued care. The tide of His life does not flow through such a one, and the sweet graces of His character are not seen, so gifts that produce no good for others leave them without blessings and privileges they and others might otherwise receive, convey no blessing to the world, darken the ground so fruitful plants cannot flourish, and rob others of privileges. A profession of truth without that living connection shows no practical godliness or love of God, and unless a thorough work is done, judgment comes as upon the fruitless tree. Hypocritical profession is more hopeless than open sin.
Fruitlessness is living only for self, planning and studying to please self and gathering only for self, out of touch with humanity. It makes every pretension like the fig tree in full leaf, observing forms of worship and professing in words to honor God's law while obedience is lacking. No one can live God's law without ministering to others, and one who professes to serve God but bears no fruit to His glory is more guilty than the open sinner. Such are urged to become fruit bearers by doing duty and the works of Christ, denying self and taking up the cross daily.
Fruitlessness keeps hoping to grow better someday without advancing a step. It dishonors Bible religion by lowering its standard to fit low attainments, receives mercies as a matter of course, and fails to prepare against Satan's assaults and to meet the attacks of the enemy. It fails to engage in constant warfare against selfishness and pride of the heart and the inclinations of the natural heart, and fails to crucify self and deny self daily. It fails to feed the hunger of the soul from God's Word and to search the Scriptures where Christ is testified of, leaving the soul weak, strengthless and unable to do God's will, changing nothing from consumer to provider. Its bitter and profitless fruit misrepresents Christ and gives no religious benefit to the world, presenting a distorted worldly religion that molds others to a low standard through self-love, pleasure-seeking, amusement, weakness and instability, so that the world is made no better by such living and they become unusable in His cause. Mere profession and passive hope do not constitute Christianity, for Christ's followers must grow, deny self, endure hardship, and resist sin and Satan while laboring to save others.
A show of leaves without fruit does not satisfy Christ when He finds no practical godliness or love of God. The leaves picture people who have received much light, mercy, patience and care but do not produce what He seeks, and they are urged to trust Him and respond while He is still patient. Christ searches institutions for spiritual virtue that saves souls, and leaves without fruit reflect the barren condition He found. The unrepentant pretender so entreated and borne with yet remaining defiled is blighted and faces judgment as doomed, a sign of avenging wrath.
Warning and Call Today
The warning reaches beyond the Jews to all who neglect to improve Heaven's gifts, a warning for all time to all churches and to all Christians. It presses especially on those given great advantages and sacred responsibilities who still bear no fruit, who will be removed as unproductive burdens, for probation has an end and the delay expresses patience, not indefinite exemption. Some are even now receiving the last trial, having been granted divine illumination, the example of perfect goodness, and new opportunities and lessons from time to time, and if they remain careless and neglectful they do not know how soon the word will be spoken against them to cut them down. The fruit required is a pure and holy character — godliness, self-denial for others' good, meekness and loveliness of heart, with penitence, faith and obedience after a perfect model of obedience to all requirements. Fruitlessness is living only for self, planning and studying to please self and gathering only for self, out of touch with humanity, making every pretension like the fig tree in full leaf while observing forms of worship and professing in words to honor the law while obedience is lacking, and no one can live that law without ministering to others, so that the professor who bears no fruit to His glory is more guilty than the open sinner.
The fruitless one has long received His gifts, planted in His vineyard under the gardener's watchful care, with the tender gospel message thrilling the heart, taking Christ's name and outwardly a church member which is His body, yet with no living connection with the great heart of love. The tide of His life does not flow through such a one, and the sweet graces of His character, the fruits of the Spirit, are not seen in the life. Like the barren tree receiving rain and sunshine and care and drawing nourishment from the soil, yet with unproductive boughs only darkening the ground so fruitful plants cannot flourish in its shadow, the gifts lavished on the fruitless professor convey no blessing to the world and rob others of privileges that might otherwise be theirs. Such do-nothings ignoring work and personal responsibility only cumber the ground, taking up ground and shade that could serve fruitful trees, and failing to show living faith with works stands as a mournful record, even a mournful blank, against their names in the book of heaven. Christ has given a work to every church member, not to ministers and officials only, and bearing fruit is doing that assigned spiritual work, while indolent neglect leaves the record blank and brings the doom of being cut down after long watching and waiting for a return of love.
Church members who do no missionary work are the fruitless fig tree under sentence to be cut down. Bearing fruit is voicing the truth from God's messengers, catching the first rays of light and diffusing the same, using talents in every way possible to make the ministry a power and get the knowledge of truth before thousands who would discern the evidence. Failure is a do-nothing position of sinful neglect to use God-given talents, slothfulness and idleness that leaves His people years behind, with not one hundredth part done of what is required. In the great day the unfruitful will be self-convicted and self-condemned for that slothfulness unless they see themselves as that tree, come to self-penitence, and seek forgiveness.
The figure applies to the Conferences, from which fruit had been looked for for more than two years, since He expects fruit from those He has planted and tenderly cared for, the fruit of righteousness shown in spiritual growth, with disappointment when only leaves are found despite continued care. It applies to churches bearing no fruit, which face removal. It applies to the church in its present condition when the love of God is lost and love for one another is absent, where self cherished and striving for supremacy bring selfishness and much human working with little pure grace in the heart, so that unless there is reconversion and repentance there will be lack of godliness and sure bearing of evil fruit, a name to live while virtually dead, and the candlestick removed because His Spirit will not always strive. It applies to laborers in the Office and publishing work, who are called to consecrate themselves to Him and center their affections and hopes in Him lest the fruitless be cut down.
The image applies to ministers who stir interest in the truth but fail to complete their work: they are given a further test, and if unfaithful are set aside as cumberers of the ground, while those who accept the truth are to bear fruit to God's glory through daily self-sacrifice and obedience. A gospel worker who wins no souls to Christ shows the fruitless tree, for fruit means souls won with something to show for labor, proved by looking after workers in different places to see the result. Such a tree may need transplanting to another field, and if after proper labor it still bears nothing it is to be cut down by dismissal as an unprofitable servant in soul-saving. The one removed should go into business to earn means to sustain successful laborers, persons of tact and wisdom who in the fear of God win souls, so the cost of working the vineyard is kept low while a large territory is worked.
The verse warns the covetous that opportunity to turn will not last without earnest repentance and decisive change, the unfruitful tree being given only a little more time before it is cut down. It shows disobeyers of the commandments as cumberers of the ground who are not immediately destroyed, and whose religious lives can be reformed when enlightened and accepting the invitation to obey. Pursuing worldly gain while neglecting God and spiritual life ends in being cut down, which is being lost eternally. A life destitute of spiritual fruit is like that tree and needs converting power with penitence and humility, or it will not enter the kingdom. One given time to change who remains unproductive and faultfinding must bring good fruit into the home lest he be cut off, and the wrongdoer going on in heedless indifference will be cut down like a cumberer unless plain reproof and counsel warn him, for those who receive care and reproof yet fail to produce expected fruit defraud Him.
During the added probation Christ ministers with unwearied love, and with increased keeping and watering continually all that heaven can give is bestowed. Even those who have slighted mercy and abused grace are not beyond hope, because long-suffering love still pleads and invites return, healing of backsliding, growth, and fruit received from Him. The added time is opportunity to cherish received light, trust Him and respond while He is patient, turn from selfish pleasure to useful self-denying work for others' good and God's glory, and do the daily opportunities and assigned spiritual work given to every member. Doing that work develops abilities and helps bear fruit, while neglect leaves withered fruitlessness; mere avoiding of wrong does not meet the expectation, for neglected good makes a cumberer and brings accountability. Mere profession and passive hope are not Christianity: followers must grow, deny self, endure hardship, resist sin and Satan, search the Scriptures where Christ is testified of, seek the Lord earnestly and apply His promises, changing consumers into providers.